Circle of Influence (A Zoe Chambers Mystery) by Annette Dashofy Page A

siblings than past lovers.
    The coffee maker stopped dripping. Pete got up to dump the old stuff in the sink, but noticed his cup was empty. He’d drained it without realizing. He poured a fresh cup and carried it to the basement. His workshop was his favorite spot in the house. It was the one area that carried no memories of Marcy. She’d hated it and never went down there. Too many spiders.
    He flipped the light switch. His vast collection of wood carving tools sat on shelves in plastic boxes. The ones he had used most recently lay on the workbench next to his current project—a reproduction Jaeger flintlock muzzleloader. He touched the bare wood of the chunky gun stock, tracing the swells and grooves of his past work. Slipping on a pair of cheap reading glasses, he selected a chisel and bent over the workbench. The curved blade shaved a sliver of maple from the stock.
    Pete attempted to focus on his work, but instead of the mental picture of the finished engraving that he tried to hold in front of him, his mind’s eye conjured up Marcy. The way she’d nearly pitched forward on her face at the news of Ted’s death.
    The blade slipped and gouged a deeper crevice than Pete had intended. Swearing under his breath, he returned the chisel to its box. Instead of whittling away at the Jaeger’s stock, he decided he needed to be whittling at McBirney’s story. The truth remained buried somewhere under the surface. He needed to gouge out the lies to find it.
    He had to talk to Marcy.

    Zoe stared at her computer. She longed to continue with Logan’s snooping. If only she knew how. She should’ve had him show her what he was doing.
    She didn’t dare phone him and risk having Rose overhear what they were up to, so for now, Zoe was stuck. She checked the clock on the mantle. Maybe not.
    After a quick call confirmed that Ted’s autopsy had been completed, Zoe grabbed her coat and made the half hour drive to the county seat where the Marshall Funeral Home was located across the road from the Brunswick Hospital. Convenient, Zoe mused. The hospital’s failures didn’t have far to travel.
    She pulled into the funeral home’s parking lot and entered via the back door. Bells jingled, announcing her arrival. Inside, the scent of lilies and carnations and other assorted flowers assaulted her nose. The fragrance brought back memories of long ago, when her dad had been in a similar building. Different mortuary. Same aroma. Grief smelled like floral arrangements.
    Zoe shivered off the memory just as a round-faced woman appeared at the end of the hall and came to meet her. The woman’s hair was pulled back so tight it gave her face the look of bad plastic surgery. She wore a dark burgundy skirt and blazer and black comfortable shoes.
    “Zoe, dear, how lovely to see you.”
    “Hi, Paulette. Is Franklin around?”
    Franklin’s secretary escorted Zoe into a large room. Shelves bearing urns, boxed thank you notes, and guest books stood against one wall. In a dark corner, three caskets, one brass, one platinum, and one wood-grained, displayed their comfortable, silk-lined interiors.
    The Monongahela County Coroner sat at an Early American desk, bent over a stack of papers. He lifted his head and offered a tight smile, extending a slender hand in Zoe’s direction.
    “Zoe. I see you made the trip even when I told you not to.”
    She smiled as she clasped his hand. “This one’s special.”
    “All the more reason you should stay out of it.” Franklin Marshall was thin and pale with equally thin and pale hair swept into a comb-over. Zoe suspected he was much younger than he appeared but the old-fashioned half-glasses he wore low on his beak didn’t help. 
    “You know I can’t do that,” she said. “What did you find out?”
    Franklin heaved a sigh and used one finger to bump the readers higher on his nose. He thumbed through a neat stack of papers in an organizer tray, gingerly removing two paper-clipped pages. “Ted Bassi